Study On The Arts Of Japan's Rimpa School

The“Rimpa School”emerged in the early 17^thcentury and flourished in the18^thh and 19^thh centuries.It is a genre of plastic arts with common tendencies and expression techniques in the Edo period of Japan.It goes after the decorative beauty with a pure Japanese taste,and influences Japanese painting and arts and crafts,especially in various fields related to life,such as dyeing and weaving,lacquer ware and ceramics.The Rimpa School pays attention to the process design and also keeps practicality.With paintings as the main form,it exerts a decisive influence on the construction of the aesthetic consciousness of the modern Japanese nation.The Rimpa School was founded by Hon'ami Koetsu and Tawaraya Sotatsu,shaped and well established by Ogata Korin and Ogata Kenzan,and inherited and carried forward by Ito Jakuchu,Sakai Hoitsu,and Kayama Matazo,and has become the most typical representative of Japanese fine arts.The study of the social background,politics,economy,cultural life,and the national aesthetic consciousness of the Edo period when the Rimpa School was created is an indispensable component of the research on the“new Japanese style”that prevails now.This paper revolves around the Rimpa School in Japan.The author conducted field research in Japan,interviews,data collation,and literature research,read a large number of Japanese works and literature,investigated the original works in major museums in Japan,vertically sorts out the history of Japanese fine arts that lasted 400 years until the creation,development,establishment,inheritance and promotion of the Rimpa styles and interest,and horizontally analyzes the ideology,social and cultural environment,historical cognition and the artistic characteristics of Japanese fine arts in the context where the typical Rimpa artists lived.At the same time,the Rimpa School is still active and occupies a position in the contemporary Japanese art.The author conducted in-depth interviews with Japanese art historians,contemporary artists,and professors based on the research on contemporary art theory,discusses and grasps the artistic characteristics of the Rimpa School considering the ethos of the Japanese nation,and thus explores the aesthetic consciousness and creativity of the Japanese nation in depth.The emergence of the Rimpa School is inseparable from the local conditions and customs of Japan,the aesthetic characteristics of Japan,the historical background,the politics and economy,and the cultural needs of the citizen stratum of the Muromachi era to the Edo period.The research is divided as follows:In the first part,the creation,establishment and inheritance of the Rimpa styles are vertically sorted out in combination with the social and cultural roots and the background of the Muromachi era to the Edo period,and the life and masterpieces of the representative artists of the Rimpa School spanning 400 years analyzed.It is pointed out that the roots of its vitality lie in the national aesthetics of each era and the personalized creation by the artists.It should be noticed that the emergence of the Rimpa School was closely related to the uniqueness of the Edo period,where a shift occurred from the imperial culture to the civilian culture.In the second part,the artistic characteristics of the Rimpa School are listed,including the gorgeous decoration,natural secularity,abstract design,sentimentality and game-like features,and diverse craftsmanship embodied in the Rimpa art.The law of development of the Japanese fine arts is analyzed,the historical evolution sorted out,and the correspondence between the theme and narrative mode of the Rimpa art explored,compared and verified.The focus lies in exploring the causes and characteristics of the aesthetic consciousness of the Japanese style,stressing the inseparable relationship between the development of the Japanese culture and art and the local conditions by analyzing Japan's fertile ground and the Japanese aesthetic consciousness and emotions,and based on the special monsoon climate of the Japanese islands and the worship of nature by Japanese people,and exploring the unique emotion of the Japanese nation-mono no aware,the soul of the game,and the process as the continental culture was transformed to the native Japanese art language.In the third part,the influence of the Rimpa School on Europe as the Japanese style prevailed and on the Art Nouveau is explored from the international perspective.In particular,Western art was subject to the extensive influence of the Japanese style and art in the second half of the 19^thcentury.The artistic value of the Rimpa School in the cultural exchanges and collisions between the East and the West is analyzed.In the fourth part,the contemporary expression of the Rimpa art and the possibilities of contemporary art and culture are explored based on the creation and regeneration of the Rimpa School with its 400^thh anniversary as a node.The Rimpa art most embodies the focus of the Japanese nation on decoration and craft personality according to the study.Japanese art has its own law of development and aesthetic consciousness.Its development has benefited from Chinese mainland culture for a long time.However,it is not about pure imitation.The typical styles of the Japanese fine arts are formed as the Japanese nation kept learning and brought its unique aesthetic consciousness.We tend to ignore those deeply rooted in the ethos of the Japanese nation when we study the Japanese contemporary art.Therefore,to study the Rimpa art and sort out the context and characteristics of the Japanese fine arts will help us to better understand the regional culture and globalized narrative today.